


On (Extremely) Unwanted Gratitude

by literaryspell



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, chocolate frog cards!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-28
Updated: 2011-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-23 04:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryspell/pseuds/literaryspell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione tries to show Snape that saying 'you're welcome' shouldn't be that hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On (Extremely) Unwanted Gratitude

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to fbs_fic for the incredible beta!

“They are completely ridiculous,” Snape said, sweeping his arm across the kitchen table and knocking at least forty boxes of Chocolate Frogs to the ground.

Hermione looked at the mess, and before she could stop herself, her hands were on her hips and her legs spread should-width apart.

She was just drawing in a fortifying breath when Snape glanced at her and rolled his eyes.

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” he muttered, waving his wand over the multitudes of confections. They neatly collected themselves and took up much less room on the table, as they were stacked in an orderly fashion.

Grabbing the topmost box off the pile, Hermione tried not to be too eager in ripping it open. The frog, despite being insentient, opted to plummet the four feet from her hand to floor rather than suffer the ignoble death of consumption.

Unfortunately for it, Snape wasn’t one to allow edible amphibians to traipse around his abode. The unlikely escape artist was summarily Banished. Hermione ignored Snape’s narrowed eyes as she took out the card.

Oh, yes, she thought with poorly contained glee. Her lover had good reason to be upset. These truly were ridiculous.

An Order of Merlin was one thing. The dubious honour of finding one’s visage stamped across Merlin only knew how many cards was another thing altogether. And to make matters worse, Snape’s appearance had evidently been found wanting, for his hair had been primped, his teeth whitened and straightened, his nose… well, it was decidedly more Roman and less hooked. Even his sneer had been tampered with—he would be hard-pressed to strike fear in the hearts of first years with this near smile gracing his features.

Oh, this was very bad, indeed.

“Do you hate it because it’s been altered?” Hermione asked, placing the card on the table, facedown so as not to incite further rage. “Or because you think it’s undeserved?”

Snape scowled and crossed his arms over his chest. Hermione only raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t always outwait him, but when he was this upset, he was much more likely to speak his mind. It was when he was calm that she had to tread carefully.

Finally he sighed, his entire form seeming to exhale. “I asked for none of this. I wanted to be able to do my duty and live my life in peace and solitude.”

Hermione nodded. She wanted to take him into her arms, but the timing wasn’t right for that. He’d pull away. “I think it’s because you don’t ask for accolades that they are given. And you do deserve them. Let the world say their thanks the only way they know how, Severus.”

“And you have no problem with the manner in which they bestow their unsought gratitude?” Snape grabbed another box, Banishing the frog before it even had a chance to make a break for it, and pulled her own card out. He lifted it between two fingers as if it would contaminate him.

Hermione snatched it up and look at it. She snorted; it wasn’t so bad. Not as bad as Snape’s or Harry’s, that was for sure. Harry’s card showed him pulling what were obviously joke-poses; he’d later told her that he’d been showing off for Ginny when the photograph had been taken, but they’d gone ahead and used it. Now the entire wizarding world could watch Harry Potter flex his biceps and dance a jig for time immemorial. Not exactly the proper, formal pose he’d no doubt had in mind.

Hermione’s card was fine. Just that, no more. She looked herself, she smiled brightly, and her trademark hair had been unaltered. She had no complaints other than the fact that she was even on the thing in the first place.

Flipping Snape’s card face up, Hermione put the two side by side, smiling as the little photo characters tried to get closer, even though this new, sexy Snape was playing a little hard-to-get. Hermione’s depiction had no such qualms. She appeared to be trying to build some sort of portal between the two cards.

“Cheeky wench,” Snape said, almost laughing at the antics of their replications.

“She just knows what she wants,” Hermione corrected. “And so do I.”

Snape drew her into his arms, tucking her head under his chin and sighing. “I suppose it isn’t all bad. I’ll surely be able to have my pick of fame-mongering, glory-seeking desperate housewitches now.”

Hermione pretended to push him away, but he chuckled and tightened his grip around her. “You don’t need any of that,” she said, pinching his flank through his armour-like robes.

Tilting her face up for a kiss, Snape whispered against her lips, “Nor do I want it.”

A soft noise escaped her as his lips touched hers, his mouth moving tenderly until the kiss took a more needful direction, and then Snape had her perched on the edge of the kitchen table, the Hermione and Snape cards watching intently from their cardboard prisons.

“What do you want?” she asked breathlessly, running her hands up his chest and around his neck to card through his hair.

“This will do,” Snape drawled. He spared a withering glance to their voyeuristic copies before turning them both over with vigour.

“I love you, too,” Hermione said, laughing.

And Snape was smiling, too, only it was a little more difficult to tell with his lips pressed so snugly against hers.

 

 

 

The end.  



End file.
